Stair-building tool



. Feb, 24, 1925.

M. C. HEINEN STAIR BUILDING yToor.

Filed May 10, .1924

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UNl'lED STATES MICHEL C. HEINEN, 0F PRINCETON, MINNESOTA.

STAIR-BUILDING TOOL.

Application Yfiled May 10, 1924. Serial No. 712,209.

To all whom it may concern:

' Beit known that l, MICHEL C. Hn'INnN, a citizen of theUnited States, residing at Princeton, inthe county of Mille Lacs and State of Minnesota, have invented certain new and useful Improvements in Stair- Building Tools, of which the following is a specification.

y' invention relates to carpenters tools and especially to toolsV used by stairbuilders for laying out the cutting of stringere for stairways. The object of the invention is to provide an easily regulated andoperated guide for drawing` the exact lines on a stringer for cutting the same for any size and number of steps and risers desired according to thev space available or desirable for a stairway. The invention also involves a new method of doing such layout work. f

The means and methods heretofore employed for laying o-ut stair stringers are so crude, slow and unreliable that there is no need Of comparing the same tothe invention under consideration. @lily this may be mentioned,that the regular carpenters square usually called the steel square is used as a basic element in my device andfl use it for setting or adjusting what I will callthe primary deviceof my invention and thereafter a secondary device is regulated or set primary device and then the secondary de-V vice is ready to be placed upon the stringer as a guide for marking whereV the saw cuts are to be made for the steps and risers'.

In the yaccompanying drawing:

'Fig Al is a. face or plan view of a.y steel square with my entire device placed upon it and Vadjusted foruse of a'- part ofit upon a s tringer. Y

Fig. 2 vis an Aenlarged 24-2 in Fig. l.

Fig. 3 is an edge view of the bar Lu looking Vin `the direction ofthe arrow A in Fig.

l, or in Fig. A with the bar turnedv end for end.

Fig. A is a plan view of a Stringer with the secondary device placed upon it as a guide for the pencil laying out the cutting for steps and risers.

igz 5 is a side elevation of a Stringer 1n position for use after being cut out for the steps and risers. j

` Fig. 6 is a sectionon the' line 6-6 in F ig, l with the secondary device omitted.

by the section on the line Fig. 7 is ay metal clamp used in the operation of the device.

Referring to the drawing' mainly by reference characters, to avoid confusion with the numbers on the measuring part-s, A1 designates the short arm and A2 the long arm of a common square such as usedby carpenters who usually call it the steel square. The short arm of it is usually sixteen inches and the long arm twenty-four inches, as shown by the scales A3 and A4.

As best shown in Figs. l and 6,' a metal plate B is firmly secured at C to a straight bar D that `is slidably held against and is somewhat thicker than the outer edge of the arm A1. One `edge of the plate is bent to form a guide E over the inneredge of arm A1 and an extension of said guide forms a spring arm F which at all times presses at the front side of the arm A and causes the friction that holds the plate or clasp thus formed in any desired place on the arm A1.

`Pivoted at Gto the outer, upper corner of the clasp is the upper corner of what may be called the primary device in the invention. lt consists of a parallelogrammic yoke composed of two long parallel bars H1, H2 and a series of parallel short bars or cleats 'pivoted at l and bearing numbers say from 8 to 25, or as may be desired, from which the operator may select and use any one according to the number of stops it is found proper for a. certain stairway to have. Few if any stairs have less than eight or more than twenty-five steps. The topmost cleat, 26forms a part of the parallelogram andthe cleat 1,3 is thicker than the adjacent. cleats so as, to project forward of them and is `also extended as 13X toward the bar D while its otherend is the .same length as the rest of the step-indicating cleats.

`The secondary device consists of a smaller steel square J having near its outer angle a lateral flange K, `shown in Fig. et,` and in dotted line in Fig. l, adapted to guide against the inner edge of the kbar l) and thereby set the arms J1 and J2 in parallel rela-tion to the arms of the large square AlAz. The bar i3X also aids iuY thus setting the two squares because it contacts with the lower edge of the blade J2 and isl itself held by the parallelogram parallel to the blade A2.;

L is` an adjustable diagonally disposed straightbar provided with a scale of inches,

as are also the arms of the square J. The bar L is preferably made of two parallel members L1 and L2 secured together by screws 0 near the middle while the end portions are normally slightly spread so as to be drawn together by thumb screws M and N so as to clamp between them the arms of the small square in any adjusted position. Of course, screws M and N may be bolts with thumbnuts if so desired, and the bar members, or at least one of them must have a slot P for the arm J1 of the square and a slot or groove Q for the other arm. In said groove there may be a rounded point R for the arm J2 to guide against, and the arm Il is supposed to be in contact with the terminal S of the slot P. At T in Fig. 3 is best shown that the ends of the bars L1, L2 are normally slightly spaced apart.

In Figs. 4 and 5 U designates lone of the stringers of a stairway to be cut out so as to form 'faces V to which the risers are to be secured, and faces `W upon which to secure the steps.

The operation or use of the invention is as follows:

Assuming the stairbuilder is to cut Iout the stringer for a certain stairway; he first places one of the stringers, like plank U in Fig. 4, upon his work bench or other support, and upon the same or upon the bench he places his regular square A1, A2, or such square belonging to the invention as a part of it; places the clasp B-E-F and the parallelogram in about the position shown in Fig. 1. After finding the height X in Fig. 5 to be say seven Vand one-half feet he moves the clasp with its upper edge to 7% on the scale A2; He next finds out the available or desirable floor line Y. Taking all obstructions as well as desire for easy rise of steps into consideration, it may be supposed that he finds line Y to be thirteen feet. IIe then swings the parallelogram on the pivot G and at the other joints I, I, until he gets one of the step indicating cleats with its right hand end as near as he ca-n to the 13 inch mark on square arm A2 (every inch there indicating one foot actual floor line the same as every inch on arm A1 counts for a foot rise) and brings said cleat with its upper edge in line with the lower edge of arm A2. If the end of the cleat gets a little beyond 13 or falls a little short of it at the time it is in line with said lower edge the floor line will be correspondingly lengthened or shortened, and if the lengthening is objectionable because of possible Iobstructions then the remedy is to have one less step by taking the next cleat higher up, say cleat 1 6 instead of 17 first tried. Under contrary conditions the change may be made as from cleat 17 to cleat 18. When the proper cleat is thus adjusted, the clamp 27 in Fig. 7 is placed as 27 in Fig. 1 -and tightened so as to hold the parallelogram and the large square in the adjusted position.

The voperator now places the smaller square I with its arms J2 in contact with the upperedge of the forwardly projecting long cleat 13X which is always parallel to the inner edge of the square-arm A2 and the other arm J1 or its flange K against the bars D and 26 and holds it in that position while he adjusts the diagonal bar L strictly down upon the adjacent corner 26X of bar 2G, and the rest of said bar L into parallel relation to the bar I-Il. He then tightens the screws M and N so as to clamp the small square in the bar L. His next step is to pick up the secondary device, the bar L and the small square J and places jit upside 'down upon the stringer as in Fig. 4 and with the diagonal bar against the edge of the plank U and drawing the point of a pencil along the edges of the small square say as S-S2ee S3 he gets lines like V-IV in Fig. 4, and by moving the secondary device asffar as from S to S3 he can mark the successive notches to be cut out in the stringer until he gets as many notches as the number on the step cleat he selected, indicates. After a stringer or two stringere, temporarily stuck together, are laid out as in Fig. 4 and the notches cut, eachstringer is turned up with the notched edge up as in Fig. 5 and it will be found to fit correctly from-the top 'of the floor 28 to theunder side of floor 29, and counting the said floor 29 for a step the risers (not shown) will be found to be of equal height down the entire stairway.

When another and dierent stairway is to be laid out the process just described is repeated and the steps may be wide or narrow and the riser likewise by carrying out the adjusting just described with a different height between the floors and a different length of floor line as may be desired or found most convenient.

What I claim is:

1. In a device for laying out stair stringers for cutting, the combination of a main square having its two arms laid out as scales of inches, a clasp frictionally held but slidable upon one of said arms and having a guide bar extending toward the heel of the square, a parallelogrammic device pivoted to the clasp and comprising two normally spaced parallel bars and a series of short parallel cleats pivoted to said bars and bearing numbers indicating various numbers of steps in a stair; means for securing said parallelogrammic device in any desired angular position upon the square, one of said cleats being extra long toward the angle of the square; a smaller square adapted to have one arm resting upon the eXtra long cleat and the other arm contacting edgewise against the guiding bar of the clasp, anda diagonal bar having means for clamping it in various adjusted positions upon the arms certain extreme point for the diagonal bar ofthe smaller square; said smaller square and to Contact with when in parallel relation to 10 diagonal bar being removable from the other the long bar of the parallelogram and parts and applicable upon the stair Stringer readyto be clamped to the arms of the small I as a pencil guiding means for marking lines square.

at which to ont notches in the Stringer. In testimony whereof I ax my signa- 2. The structure specified in claim l, in ture.

which the clasp on the main square has a MICHEL C. HEINEN. 

